CHAPTER 15
PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
RESOURCES-AT-A-GLANCE
Detailed Outline
Learning
Objectives
Instructor’s Resources
Test Bank
MyPsychLab Connections
Chapter Introduction pp. 375-376
PowerPoint Slides
1-4
Sketchnote Video
Middle Adulthood
Vision and Hearing
15.4
Gender and Health
Socioeconomic Class, Ethnicity,
15.6
15.7
15.8
PowerPoint Slides
SA 97–99
ES 108–110
Death and Afterlife Beliefs:
Physical Changes pp. 376-382
The Brain and Nervous System
The Reproductive System
The Skeletal System
15.1
15.2
15.3
PowerPoint Slides
5-21
MC 1-31
FI 75–80
SA 90–96
ES 105–107
Watch
Physical Changes in Middle
Adulthood, p. 376
Middle Adulthood: Happiness
and Health
Alcoholism
15.9
22–35
Coronary Heart Disease, p. 383
Prostate Cancer, p. 386
Middle Adulthood: Health
in Middle Adulthood
across Cultures, p. 368
Coping with Diabetes, p. 387
Creativity
Cognitive Functioning pp. 389-395
Models of Physical and Cognitive
15.10
PowerPoint Slides
36–47
MC 60-74
FI 86–89
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In middle adulthood, the period from 40 to 60, the story of human development in the physical and
cognitive domains becomes more an account of differences than a description of universals. This happens
because there are so many factors—behavioral choices, poor health, and so on—that determine the
developmental pathway that an individual adult follows.
In most individuals, the brain is somewhat smaller at the end of middle adulthood than at the beginning of
the period. Some declines in brain function are evident. However, middle-aged adults use a variety of
strategies to compensate for these declines and, as a result, often outperform younger adults on practical
Cardiovascular disease results from the build-up of a fatty substance in the arteries. Smoking, high blood
pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and a high-fat diet increase the likelihood that a middle-aged adult will
suffer from cardiovascular disease. Men are more likely than women to have this disease. Some studies
suggest that high-fat diets increase the risk of cancer. Smoking, obesity, and an inactive lifestyle may
also contribute to this disease. On average, women live longer than men, but they are more likely to
suffer from chronic conditions such as arthritis. Ethnicity and socioeconomic class are linked to health in
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After completing Chapter 15, students should be able to answer the following questions:
15.1 What do researchers know about brain function in middle age?
15.2 How does reproductive function change in men and women in middle age?
15.3 What is osteoporosis, and what factors are associated with it?
15.4 How do vision and hearing change in middle age?
15.5 How does cardiovascular disease develop?
15.6 What factors contribute to cancer?
15.7 What are some important differences in the health of middle-aged men and women?
15.8 How are socioeconomic status and ethnicity related to health in middle adulthood?
KEY TERMS
osteoporosis (p. 381)
perimenopausal phase (p. 378)
postmenopausal phase (p. 379)
premenopausal phase (p. 378)
presbycusis (p. 382)
presbyopia (p. 382)
selective optimization with compensation (p. 390)
semantic memories (p. 392)
INTEGRATED CHAPTER TEACHING NOTES
PHYSICAL CHANGES (pp. 376-382)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: Physical Changes in Middle Adulthood, p. 376
Watch: Middle Adulthood: Happiness and Attitude toward Aging, p. 377
Watch: Menopause, p. 378
Watch: Middle Adulthood: Estrogen and Memory, p. 379
The Brain and Nervous System
LO 15.1 What do researchers know about the brain functions in middle age?
Relatively little is known about the normal, undamaged brains of middle-aged adults. This is because
research has focused on changes associated with trauma and disease rather than changes due to primary
aging. In recent years, however, neuropsychologists have learned a great deal about the extent to which
changes in cognitive functioning are attributable to age-related changes in the brain. Researchers
examine how the brains of young and middle-aged people respond to cognitive tasks.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.1, pp. 376-377)
Based on the research about the effects of primary and secondary aging, what should you do to reduce the
effects of secondary aging on your brain?
The Reproductive System
LO 15.2 How does reproductive function change in men and women in middle age?
One of the most significant changes in middle adulthood is in the reproductive system. Climacteric refers
to the loss of reproductive capacity over the years of middle or late adulthood in both men and women.
Male Climacteric
In men, the climacteric is extremely gradual, with a slow loss of reproductive capacity, although the rate
of change varies widely from one man to the next. The quantity of viable sperm produced declines
slightly, beginning perhaps about age 40, the testes shrink very gradually, and the volume of seminal fluid
declines after about age 60. The cause of these declines is most likely a very slow drop in testosterone
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.2, pp. 377-378)
Why do you suppose alcohol abuse and smoking are considered to be as possible causes of erectile
dysfunction?
Lifestyle changes, such as weight loss, can sometimes restore sexual function. Among healthy middle–
aged men, performance anxiety is a frequent cause of erectile dysfunction. The drug sildenafil (Viagra),
has been found to be effective in treating this problem.
Menopause
Declines in key sex hormones are clearly implicated in the set of changes called menopause in women,
which literally means the cessation of the menses. Estrogen and progesterone are closely involved in
Menopausal Phases
Menopause, like puberty, is often thought of as a single event. It actually occurs, however, over several
years, and researchers generally agree that it consists of three phases.
During the premenopausal phase, estrogen levels begin to fluctuate and decline, typically in the late 30s
or early 40s, producing irregular menstrual periods in many women. The ovaries are less sensitive to
During the perimenopausal phase, estrogen levels decrease and women experience more extreme
variations in the timing of their menstrual cycles. The majority of women in the period of menopause
experience hot flashes. Symptoms include the sensation of warmth in the upper body and head, an abrupt
rise in skin temperature, increased heart rate, flushing, and usually visible sweating. The cause of hot
flashes is not known, but it must clearly be linked in some complex way to the drop in the level of
estrogen.
Eventually, estrogen and progesterone drop to consistently low levels, and menstruation ceases altogether.
Once a woman has ceased to menstruate for a year, she is in the postmenopausal phase. Estradiol and
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 15.2, p. 379)
No Easy Answers: The Pros and Cons of Hormone Therapy
What do you think? Do the risks of hormone therapy outweigh the advantages? Explain your answer.
Psychological Effects of Menopause
It has been part of folklore that menopause involves major emotional upheaval, as well as clear physical
changes. Such findings, however, are mixed. Depressive symptoms increase during menopause, but
serious depression is no more frequent among menopausal women than among those who are not
menopausal.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.2, pp. 379-380)
What is your own view of menopause? How much has your view been influenced by the negative
stereotypes of menopausal women in the media?
Sexual Activity
Despite all of the changes in the reproductive system, the great majority of middle-aged adults remain
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.2, pp. 380-381)
Can you think of any other explanations for the gradual decline in frequency of sexual activity during the
middle adult years?
The Skeletal System
LO 15.3 What is osteoporosis, and what factors are associated with it?
A change that begins to be quite significant in middle adulthood is a loss of calcium from the bones,
resulting in reduced bone mass and more brittle and porous bones; a process called osteoporosis. The
bone loss begins at about age 30 for both men and women, but in women the process is accelerated by
menopause. The major consequence of this loss of bone density is a significantly increased risk of
fractures, beginning as early as age 50 for women, much later for men.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.3, p. 381)
In teams, design a promotion to convince adolescents and young adults of the importance of getting
enough calcium and exercise. Share your promotion with the entire class.
Vision and Hearing
LO 15.4 How do vision and hearing change in middle age?
One of the most noticeable physical changes occurring in the middle years is a loss of visual acuity. Two
changes in the eyes, collectively called presbyopia, are involved:
▪ The lens of the eye thickens.
▪ This thickening makes it harder and harder for the muscles surrounding the eye to change the shape of
the lens to adjust the focus.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.4, p. 382)
If you were in charge of public health programs and wanted to convince young adults that they should not
listen to loud music over earphones because of the risks of early and extensive hearing loss, how would
you go about persuading them? What arguments do you think would work?
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objective 15.1-15.4, pp. 376-382)
HEALTH AND WELLNESS (pp. 383-389)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: Middle Adulthood: Portraits of Middle Adult Physical Health, p. 383
Cardiovascular Disease
LO 15.5 How does cardiovascular disease develop?
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), a group of disease processes in the heart and circulatory system, is the
leading cause of death in the nation. In middle age, a sudden heart attack, technically known as an acute
myocardial infarction, is sometimes the first indication of a problem. Sudden heart attacks are often
General Risk Factors
The risk factors for CVD are well-established and are printed in Table 15.2. The great majority of
Americans are high on at least one of the risk factors. These risks are cumulative—the more high-risk
behaviors a person has, the higher the risk of heart disease.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.5, pp. 383-384)
How many of the risk factors in Table 15.2 apply to you?
Personality and Health
Personality may also contribute to heart disease. The type A personality includes such characteristics as
competitive achievement striving, a sense of time urgency, and hostility or aggressiveness. Type B
people, in contrast, were thought to be less hurried, more laid back, less competitive, and less hostile.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.5, pp. 384-385)
How do you explain the correlation between hostility and anger with CVD? How do you explain the
correlation between distress and CVD?
Cancer
LO 15.6 What factors contribute to cancer?
The second leading cause of death among adults over the age of 45 is cancer. Like heart disease, it does
not strike in a totally random fashion; most of the risk factors are at least partially under your control.
Gender and Health
LO 15.7 What are some important differences in the health of middle-aged men and women?
Women live longer than men, but they have more diseases and disabilities. This difference is already
present in early adulthood and grows larger with age. By old age, women are substantially more likely
than men to be chronically ill.
How is it possible that men die younger, but they are relatively healthier while they are alive? This
Socioeconomic Class, Ethnicity, and Health
LO 15.8 How are socioeconomic status and ethnicity related to health in middle adulthood?
While emphasizing preventative actions such as exercise, developmentalists cannot ignore the importance
for health and mental ability in middle adulthood of those familiar demographic variables—social class
Cardiovascular Disease
Although CVD is the leading cause of death in all racial groups, it disables and/or kills a higher
proportion of African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans than of either White or
Diabetes
The proportion of adults in the United States who suffer from diabetes is growing in all ethnic groups, but
minorities have significantly higher rates of the condition than Whites. Minority adults who have been
Cancer
African Americans have higher rates of some types of cancer. The main cause for cross-racial variations
Alcoholism
LO 15.9 What are some of the consequences of alcoholism for middle-aged adults?
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 15.9, p. 398)
Research Report: Internet Addiction Disorder
The text mentioned that some people spend so much time online that they don’t have time for interactions
with family and friends. What might be some long-term consequences of this behavior?
Alcohol is the most frequently abused substance in the United States. Alcoholism, defined as
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.9, p. 388)
What do you suppose occurs in middle adulthood that causes addictions that were undiagnosed in
adolescence or early adulthood to be discovered?
Critical Thinking Questions (Learning Objectives 15.5-15.9, pp. 382-389)
Considering all the risk factors for the various health problems that were described in this section, what
can you predict about your own health in middle age? Which factors can you change?
COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING (pp. 389-393)
In the middle adult years, some cognitive abilities improve, whereas others slow down a bit. Still, many
Models of Physical and Cognitive Aging
LO 15.10 How do Denney’s and the Balteses’ models explain the relationship between health and
cognitive functioning in middle age?
Nancy Denney proposed that changes with age on nearly any measure of physical or cognitive
functioning follow a typical curve. She also argues that the height of the curve varies, depending on the
amount an individual exercises some ability or skill. Exercise is used broadly to refer not only to physical
exercise, but also to mental exercise and to the extent that some specific task may have been performed
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.10, p. 390)
From your experience, what evidence do you have that supports or argues with Denney’s conclusion?
A somewhat different approach was taken by researchers Paul and Margaret Baltes. In their view, the
physical declines of middle age give rise to a strategy they call selective optimization with compensation,
the process of balancing the gains and losses associated with aging. The idea is that, as the body ages
cognitive task. Optimization is involved when middle-aged adults work to improve their physical fitness
or to expand their knowledge. Compensation takes many forms, including the use of reading glasses and
the development of organizational strategies.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.10, p. 390)
From your experience, what evidence do you have that supports or argues with the Balteses’ proposal?
Health and Cognitive Functioning
LO 15.11 What has research revealed about the link between health and cognitive functioning?
Research examining correlations between health and cognition help developmentalists understand the
effects of secondary aging. Specifically, many of the same characteristics that are linked to an increased
or decreased risk of heart disease and cancer are also linked to the rate of change or the maintenance of
intellectual skill in the middle years.
Warner Schaie’s analysis of data from the Seattle Longitudinal Study raises the possibility that exercise
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.11, pp. 391-392)
How would you research the link between exercise and cognitive functioning?
Changes in Memory and Cognition
LO 15.12 How do young and middle-aged adults differ in performance on memory tests?
Lack of mental exercise tends to be correlated with declines in memory and cognitive skills, but major
deficits are not found until after age 60 to 65.
Memory Function
Researchers of adult memory rarely study middle-aged people. Instead, they often infer that middle-aged
adults’ performance falls somewhere between young adults and adults in the 60s and 70s. In other words,
they assume that memory function declines steadily across the adult years—an assumption that may not
be true.
The subjective experience of forgetfulness increases with age: the older we get, the more forgetful we
think we are. It may be that the memory demands of middle-aged adults’ everyday lives are greater than
for those of young adults.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.12, p. 392)
How might cohort differences affect the results of studies comparing the cognitive functioning of middle–
aged adults to that of both younger and older adults? What kind of design would minimize such cohort
effects? If such a study were begun today, how long would it be before researchers could derive useful
conclusions from the data?
Semantic and Episodic Memories
Researchers can gain additional insight into age-related memory changes by studying how well young and
middle-aged adults encode different kinds of memories. Episodic memories are recollections of personal
events or episodes. Semantic memories represent general knowledge.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.12, p. 392)
Give examples of episodic memories and semantic memories.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.12, p. 393)
Give examples of strategies middle-aged adults might use to actively improve their memories.
Use It or Lose It?
In general, most adults maintain or even gain in skills on any task that they practice often or that is based
on specific learning. The “use it or lose it” dictum seems to hold true for cognitive abilities. That is,
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.12, p. 393)
Give examples of how expertise can help compensate for age-related deficits in cognitive functioning.
Creativity
LO 15.13 What does research suggest about age-related changes in creativity?
A somewhat different question about cognitive functioning in the middle years of adulthood has to be
with creativity, the ability to produce original, appropriate, and valuable ideas and/or solutions to
problems. Research findings suggest that the ability to apply creative thinking efficiently to complex
problems may be at its peak in the middle adult years.
One useful approach to creativity describes it as a type of thought process called divergent thinking. A
person who uses divergent thinking can provide multiple solutions to problems having no clear answer.
Creative solutions pop into the mind of a creative person fully-formed, but, most of the time, they arise
from bits and pieces of several solutions that she has been mulling over for a while. Psychologist Donald
Goleman describes this mulling over process as involving four stages:
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 15.13, pp. 393-394)
Why do you think that some people associate creativity with youth when there are so many highly
creative middle-aged and older adults?
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 15.13, p. 394)
Developmental Science in the Workplace: Maintaining the Creative “Edge” at Mid-Life and
Beyond
How do you believe that accumulated knowledge impacts creativity?
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 15.10-15.13, pp. 389-395)
Given what you have learned in these sections, where would you place cognitive functioning in middle
LECTURE LAUNCHERS
Type A Behavior Pattern
Friedman and Rosenman (1974) first described the Type A behavior pattern and its potential link to
coronary heart disease. Individuals with this behavior pattern are described as highly competitive, have
very tight schedules in their lives, and are quite impatient with people who are moving at a slower pace
than they are. The description of this behavior pattern sparked an amazing amount of research.
Physicians, as well as psychologists, became interested in this pattern because it represented a clear and
convincing connection between one’s psychological characteristics and one’s health. Type A was defined
as a personality pattern, and this research provided strong empirical support that this pattern was linked to
a major health problem.
Many of the early studies on this pattern seemed to confirm what was suspected. Type A pattern was
correlated with competitiveness, major hostility, and an approach to life that is rigid and structured.
that it is this pattern of characteristics that are linked to coronary problems.
What can be done to minimize the effects of this behavior pattern? It seems that most of the attention
would need to focus on the degree to which the individual overreacts to situations. If the individual is
getting stressed out every time the car in front of him at the stoplight does not move fast enough when the
light turns green, we can imagine how much stress could be generated just within the typical day.
Pathological Gambling
Another behavioral problem that often goes undiagnosed until middle adulthood is pathological gambling
(Kaplan & Saddock, 1991). Features of this disorder include being preoccupied with thoughts about
Mental health status, especially pre-existing personality disorders, is also associated with pathological
gambling (Steel & Blaszczynski, 1998; Blaszczynski, 1999; Lejoyeux et al., 1999). In fact, a recent study
found that more than 80 percent of participants who were pathological gamblers also had a personality
disorder (Black & Moyer, 1998). Other mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety
disorders, were also more frequent than in the general population.
Black, D. & Moyer, T. (1998). Clinical features and psychiatric comorbidity of subjects with pathological
gambling behavior. Psychiatric services, 49, 1434-1439.
gambling studies, 15, 29-43.
Ohtsuka, K., Bruton, E., DeLuca, L., & Borg, V. (1997). Sex differences in pathological gambling using
gaming machines. Psychological reports, 80, 1051-1057.
Petry, N. & Armentano, D. (1999). Prevalence, assessment, and treatment of pathological gambling: a
review. Psychiatric services, 50, 1021-1027.
INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
Media
▪ MyPsychLab—MyPsychLab contains a variety of engaging activities and assessments that aid in
teaching and learning, including the following tools:
o MyVirtualLife. MyVirtualLife is an interactive, science-based simulation that allows students to
apply what they have learned in their developmental psychology course by acting as a parent to
their very own virtual child or living their virtual life. By connecting theories learned in class to
the development of their simulations over time, students build critical thinking skills and bring
course material to life.
▪ MyPsychLab Connections
o Watch: Physical Changes in Middle Adulthood, p. 276
o Watch: Middle Adulthood: Happiness and Attitude toward Aging, p. 377
o Watch: Menopause, p. 378